From left, Republican state senators Owen Hill, Chris Holbert, Vicki Marble, John Cooke, Bob Rankin and Ray Scott look over Senate Bill 19-181 as it is debated at the Colorado State Capitol on March 12, 2019, in Denver. The bill, which was approved in the Senate and then recently the House, will significantly overhaul regulation of Colorado’s oil and gas industry.

One of the legislative session’s most hotly debated bills got preliminary approval in the Senate on Tuesday night after more than eight hours of debate on what has been called “the most sweeping oil and gas reforms” the state has seen.

When Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg and House Speaker KC Becker announced Senate Bill 19-181 on March 1, they said it was a comprehensive overhaul of how oil and gas are regulated, but also a common sense measure. It directs state regulators to put public health and safety first and gives cities and counties the option of overseeing oil and gas development in their borders.

The bill would rewrite the current state law that says the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission must protect public health and safety while also fostering development.

While the bill has moved quickly through the Colorado General Assembly so far, it has ignited a firestorm of opposition from the oil and gas industry, elected officials whose areas are among the state’s top energy producers and some business and trade associations. The bill passed three Senate committees on party-line votes: Democrats saying “yes,” and Republicans saying “no.”

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Republican Senator Paul Lundeen waits for his turn at the podium as Democratic Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg speaks during debate of Senate Bill 19-181 at the Colorado State Capitol March 12, 2019, in Denver.

The partisan divide continued in the Democratic-controlled Senate as a group of Republican lawmakers took turns lambasting the bill early in the day. They predicted that, if approved, the new regulations will drain hundreds of millions of dollars from the state and local economies and doom tens of thousands of jobs when oil and gas production inevitably drops.

“Senate Bill 181 is an absolute tragedy and failure of leadership,” said Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley. “It’s very personal to me because this chamber is about to economically destroy my county.”

Cooke represents most of Weld County, which leads the state in oil and gas production with nearly 13,000 active wells.

But Sen. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, recalled how the oil and gas industry warned that regulations approved a decade ago would harm the industry, cost people their jobs and cripple the economy.

“Do you know what actually happened to us since 2008? The state has seen an additional 20,000 new wells,” Foote said. “Oil production in this state has gone up 453 percent since these supposed job-killing regulations came into place in 2008.”

By evening, after a two-hour break, lawmakers came back and quickly approved a handful of amendments, intended to answer some of the concerns of industry representatives and Republican legislators. One of the amendments would add language ensuring that any regulations approved by the state or local governments to protect health and safety would have to be reasonable and necessary.

Fenberg said, while the bill isn’t perfect, it’s a major step forward in making public health concerns more of a priority while allowing oil and gas development to continue.

Industry representatives and some lawmakers have urged Fenberg and Becker to slow down the bill to give interest groups more time to weigh in. They say the impact on the oil and gas industry and the Colorado economy could be disastrous if local communities ban drilling.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Democratic Senator Mike Foote speaks as Senate Bill 19-181 is debated at the Colorado State Capitol March 12, 2019, in Denver.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, which represents 300 companies, said the process has been too rushed, “passing three committees in three days, in partisan fashion.”

“For something bill sponsors have called the ‘most sweeping oil and gas legislation the state has ever seen,’ something of that importance and that scope takes time to analyze and understand how it will impact our members and their investment decisions,” the trade organization’s CEO and president, Dan Haley, said in a statement.

But residents living near existing wells or facing the prospect of drilling in their neighborhoods or near their children’s schools have been just as fierce in their support of the bill during committee hearings, one of which drew nearly 200 speakers and lasted about 12 hours. Local elected officials urged lawmakers to approve the bill to give them authority to use their planning and land-use powers to regulate oil and gas as they do other development.

“I’m here in support of SB 181 because the health, safety and welfare of my constituents can only be protected from the adverse impacts of oil and gas development with strong local control,” Superior Mayor Pro Tem Mark Lacis said during the Senate Finance Committee hearing last week.

The bill will have to go through a final hearing in the Senate before going to the House, where it will be heard by committees.

And because Democrats control the legislature, the chances are good of the bill making it to the desk of Gov. Jared Polis, who supports the measure. But the work won’t be finished. The oil and gas commission and the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment will have to write rules implementing the law, which is expected to take several months and many public hearings.

In the meantime, Fenberg and Becker say changes have been made to the bill with input from the industry and others and that more will be made. They have said nothing in the bill would permit drilling bans and that local regulations would have to be reasonable and if they weren’t, they could be challenged in court.

“Everything in this bill in many ways is negotiable. That’s what we do here: negotiate, compromise. We find solutions to problems,” Fenberg told fellow senators Tuesday.

“The thing that is not negotiable to me is that this bill protects the health and safety of Coloradans,” Fenberg added.

As for calls to slow down the process, Fenberg said he believes the bill is likely the most debated of the session. He said Monday that the industry might want more time so they can send more mailings and run more TV ads against SB 181.

A TV ad by the Colorado Petroleum Council that started airing this week urges people to ask their legislators to stop the bill. A handful of politicians, the ad says, are trying to pass the bill “in the middle of the night to shut down energy production in Colorado.”

“The natural gas and oil industry was absolutely left in the dark with respect to the language of Senate Bill 181 prior to its introduction late on Friday, March 1st.,” Colorado Petroleum Council spokesman Ben Marter said in a statement when asked about the ad. “Providing ‘input’ following a bill’s introduction is quite different than offering unique knowledge and expertise during the drafting of legislation.”

Marter declined to disclose how much the organization is spending on the ad except to say that it’s “significant.”

Tuesday’s debate got off to a slow start after Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, requested that the 27-page bill be read word for word out loud. On Monday, Cooke requested the reading of House Bill 1172 — a 2,000-page bill revising Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes — be read in its entirety. He said he was trying to slow down hearings and votes on the oil and gas bill and another that would repeal the death penalty.

On Monday, Democrats brought in five computers to read the bill simultaneously at a speed far faster than humans can understand.

In 2007 and 2008, regulators wrote rules strengthening protections for wildlife and the environment. In 2014, Colorado became the first state in the country to regulate methane emissions from oil and gas sites.

But conflicts and concerns have increased as the technology has advanced and companies’ ability to access oil and gas has broadened. Communities and landowners have sued, tried to impose drilling bans and launched initiatives to change the law as rigs have moved closer to where residents live and work.

Judith Kohler joined The Denver Post in August 2018 and is part of the business team, writing about energy, aerospace, agriculture and other topics. She spent 21 years with The Associated Press, covering politics, government, energy and the environment in Colorado and Wyoming.

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